Work is almost finished on the entire world map for level 1, without any props (additional geometry), and I am almost finished with tunnels. I feel quite mean now giving Nick the job of connecting tunnels to other caverns in the world map, but now I know what tunnel hell is all about! Still, at least I didn't give him the ardeous task of filtering frames out in motion capture...

We have an entire world limit of 100,000 including props, caverns, tunnels and baddies. We so far have the poly count of our world to around 30,000, though this is bound to increase/decrease/flutuate wildly with improvements to other caverns. It would be nice to see the world on the Dreamcast, though at what cost? I managed to build a gun turret with demon in low poly (around 400) and also a ramp demon, which is yet to be bipeded up and physiqued. I'm thinking that having the models as seperate parts (arms, legs, etc.) for the moment will be the way forward. Animation is going to have to be created for this as well...

Greg has managed to get this method of animation working on the Dreamcast, so it would be stupid for the moment to get skinned (one mesh) models running if we have little or no idea if they'll work. At the moment, the main bike could well be skinned with physique, including secondary animation of hair and coat flapping in the hot hell breeze. Ernie has told me that late nights are probably going to have to happen because I reckon our honcho, Alf, is being a little demanding. We'll do it, though, but it'll take a lot of late nights and weekends if we want the level to look r-e-a-l-l-y polished and nice looking.

Toks has produced some very cool new weapons which could well work their way into the game, plus a cool way of selecting weapons by having them circle around the bike, and then "brand" the logo of the selected weapon into the coat texture of the biker. The weapons are still going to be weapon pods floating around the bike, but there are ways we can actually make them emerge from the bike in cool ways. Companion demons can also be used to fly next to the biker and help him out, but of course they have to be caught first. Unfortunately, I'm not too sure what's happening with the front of the bike (moving jaw, blinking, etc.) because the only time we'll be seeing this is in replays or maybe back views with the bike in view. It's a shame really, because although it's a cool idea, we still have the problem of great front end - shame it's obscured by the ugly back end.

We have ANOTHER new guy starting today - John, an architect who managed to shine in the interview we took with him when he showed us his Mars base - going totally against the other architects where he studied. We like - we like a lot. At the moment, poor ol' John is getting to grips with 3DS Max. I wish I could help, but the powers that be keep dropping new recruits onto our laps, and working to a deadline while these newbies keep appearing is a bit daunting. We'll manage...

Hopefully by the end of play today, we'll have a whole level in DC, which will give us a better feel of how the level will look. I am not looking forward to texturing this level at all. We've got it split into parts to lighten the load somewhat, but it seems to still be a huge task indeed. Let's hope our sanity kicks in and we all decide to jet off to Bermuda.

Halfway through the week, I got a reaaly huge shock. After an "art meeting" with Alf, Burt decided that the bike needed to be... well, more bike like. Hmmm. More bike like. Originally, the plan was to upgrade from one bike to the next, and the bike I was modelling was to be the base level bike. But the Japanese public are a fickle lot, and it was decided that the old bike was to be scrapped or turned into a demon biker, and the new bike had to have flapping wings which dramatically trail behind the back of the bike as it zoomed around the caverns of Hell.

Being an artist, I had my little moment of mopping and cursing, until I decided to produce the most kick-ass bike around. The biker needed legs, and I was going to go for the more traditional "heavy hog" look which should of been done first, but me being too darn revolutionary, I didn't realise the buying public probably wanted a more kick-ass type of bike, and after mouch frantic scribbling and planning, the bike was built.

The second incarnation of the bike and biker. More bike like, with massive wings of doom. It will change again. Arrggghh.

Unfortunately, after showing it off, Burt wanted the front end of the OLD bike to be put on the front end of the NEW bike... Arrrrrrgh! Looking at the Frankenstein monster before me in 3D, I had to have a day of sulking and much vertex altering to get the thing looking like it came from the one creative moment. I now love the bike design, it's under 2000 polys (for a main character, the Dreamcast should handle it no problem!) and the wings are all holy and burnt. The bike will look even more spunky when I put the textures over it, though I've already redone a lot of the textures, though the weekend will be spent finishing off and texturing the bike, and also putting a bone structure in the wings so we can animate the buggers and give the thing a more luvely look.

The programmers are currently away on a Devcon (lingo for Development Conference..!) on the Dreamcast, so we've spent two blissful days not being nagged at. I'll treasure these two invaluable days for the rest of this project, and when they moan about Multi-Sub Objects not exporting properly, I'll shut my eyes and think of a room without nagging. Ahhhh!

I really can't wait to see what this bike evolves into next, as long as it doesn't evolve into the Recycle Bin.

The new bike has been completed, only to be hacked down to a managable poly count, criticised and moaned at. Jeez! It's Alf's idea!! We had a meeting over the bike and everything else, and I showed my lack of faith in us getting everything done on time. The programmers then pointed out I had 4 artists on my team. Whoops. Still, it is a huge undertaking and late nights will no doubt beckon. I'm trying to organise my art team into some sort of shipshape condition, but at the moment we seem to be at the mercy of those darn programmer types. A front end has also been hinted at, and although I've produced a simple animation involving cogs and the Hellgate logo, more work is needed to get it into a workable AVI along with a render on the last frame so the program can "hold" on that particular point.

Back of the bike, and what you would of seen a lot of the time when playing the game. Those wings could be a problem though...

Toks has finished some hovering weapons, and is now concentrating on getting a harpy produced in as low a poly count as possible, while Nick is finishing off a rival demon biker which also has to be hacked down poly-wise. I'm going to get the gun turret textured soon as well, and also start to work a little on the caverns in terms of texturing and also poly-reduction. New geezer John is going to help with thi horrific texturing task, while Mark is going to type more documents to keep prospective companies happy. I am secretly in a state of inner turmoil at the moment, but shhh... don't tell anyone.

 

I was hoping today to learn about bones plus getting them to magically move the wings on the bike, but now it's a case of blind panic and hard slog. We only have three weeks to go before our Tokyo deadline, and I really want the game to look lovely. Basically, though, my balls are on the chopping block if it goes pear-shaped, and I don't really want to see my balls go pear-shaped.

The way this project keeps evolving all the time is not only exciting, but also very, very scary, considering the deadline for the Tokyo Show is three short weeks away. We had a VERY weird meeting with Alf on the Wednesday, which involved the whole Hellgate team being told what they were doing was wrong. The new bike model was hacked to pieces about having wheels on it, and I kept telling Alf that the bike was meant to be ground based as was the physics engine, the level design, etc. etc. Everyone in the team was a little bit miffed with Wednesday. Black Wednesday..?

Anyhow, from that seed of chaos, poor ol' Burt had to come in and set the record straight that everything that Alf said was a little bit too forceful, and basically everything has been compromised and now we're back on track. It was still something we didn't really need, seeming the deadline was stalking us like a huge black thing. The whole problem? Alf thought the bike would actually be flying, hence the need for it to have wheels or look bike like. Daft? Hmmm. Not saying. Still, bike - sorry, vehicle numero three is now in development, and I've produced a rough sketch for it. I was going to have revamped bike number two, but now it's been converted into a demonic steed for the generic Hell's bikers.

The new design is based on the compromise that the bike can also glide down from a great height, there's no wheels, bloody huge air brakes to slow down your craft (which goes at a considerable speed, so something like that is definitely needed). I'll build the bike over the weekend again, redo textures and basically give the bike a new look which should (hopefully) be permanent. Notice the use of the word "hopefully".

Sketch of the third and final bike design. Note the lack of wheels but bloody huge exhausts.

We also had loads of meetings after "The Alf Incident" and we've produced something which closely resembles a schedule. Not only does this take a lot of pressure off us because everything is now in perspective, but also we've got goals to head for, and everything has been planned. Unfortunately, the FMV has to be shipped out to some other poor company, but I'll still need to produce the storyboards and character sketches for the FMV. Mark, with his animation/film roots is producing the script as well. We'll see how well this all settles when the time comes for FMV to be produced, but don't be surprised if you see a lot of real time animation in there - where the game engine tells the story (a lot like Tomb Raider 2 onwards..)

Not only that, but we have characters to produce, a front end style, plus levels to design and build. I'm not worried at all about the characters, or front end. The levels will be the only time killer, because not only do we want them built (not too hard), but also tested (aaargh!) and also textured (double arrrgh!). I've told Burt we need a full-time texture artist, and we've recently got an application from someone whose textures are AMAZING!! He has 5 years game production experience, and he sounds like just the type of person we need. Poor soul...!

 

John is helping out with production of the huge City level, which is next. John has still to learn the basics of low poly modelling, but you can't blame him for his huge and grand designs. Some of the city models are brilliantly imposing, giving an evil sense of architecture to the game. I'm wondering if John has any sacrificial goats around his desk...!

All we need to do for the deadline, though, is finish characters for the level - the gun turret is finished (yeay!), as is Toks' Harpy (yeay!) which needs to be bipeded and have some animation, and the ramp demon needs some animation. Nick's main demon biker is almost textured, though is more suited for the graveyard level. Saying that, we'll use the main biker for the demo. Speaking of which, the programmers are in a bit of a lather over getting the demo produced on time. They've been writing a new rendering engine, which has real-time lighting, though whether they keep this oh-so-nice feature yet remains to be seen.

As Lead Artist, I am the unfortunate in charge of everyone artistically, though it's weird that there are times when I'm inbetween periods of optimistic joy and impossible despair. Case in point today - tried to get two characters to share the same texture sheet. Couldn't get Toks' model to work properly because we textured our models differently. Worried for a while. Doubted everything. Suddenly divine inspiration, got his model working, feel like I could finish the whole project in a month.

Still, everything is going well as I type artistically. Basically, I'm going to work like a man possessed over the weekend, and hopefully all the overwork I'll put into the project will pay off. I hate to see what I'll look like three months down the line...